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E3 2016 Round Up Part 5 – Sony

Sony opened their press conference in style with a live orchestra and vocals that was really striking and set the right atmosphere for what was to come. In this case it involved an all new God of War, now taking cues from Norse mythology.

The close up camera work really highlights the characters and the brutal combat and there was even a moment of emotional resonance in the demo that was quite unexpected from a game series more known for gratuitous violence.

Post apocalyptic stories continue abound on PlayStation 4 it seems with Days Gone appearing to have a strong story focus of a mercenary type trying to make ends meet after the world as we know it ends. A demo at the end showed the scale of the game with a mountainous number of enemies which is a great showcase for the console.

And after years of promises, delays and new platforms The Last Guardian will finally arrive on October 25 of this year. Will it justify the time spent and the hype? We’ll find out in a few month’s time.

Horizon Zero Dawn looks really, REALLY good with piles of environment detail, impressive character animation, stunning vistas and some creative mechanical fauna. Much like No Man’s Sky, the art design looks inspired by 1970’s Sci-Fi art and is better for it. Developer Guerrilla might finally have hit on something special here.

Quantic Dream’s Detroit Become Human returns once again in trailer form presenting a sequence where the player steps into the role of an Android hostage negotiator. The multi path narrative of the developer’s past games appears here too so if you are not a fan of their style of game this may not be for you.

But for those looking to pick up a PlayStation VR headset, January 24th 2017 might be a date for you to remember with Resident Evil 7 supporting the platform from the outset and it that looks certain to creep players out a lot. PlayStation VR now has a release date too of October 13th this year too.

Despite competition pushing big numbers in relation to hardware capabilities, Sony are pushing only one: there’s 40 million PS4s out there already and they can all use PSVR. We’ll know the truth of both arguments when the hardware ships later this year.

Backing up their commitment to the new platform, Sony have a raft of exclusive content such as Sci-Fi shooter Farpoint. A Star Wars Battlefront VR Mission in an X-Wing, Final Fantasy XV and Batman: Arkham VR. How long they stay exclusive remains to be seen but with an Xbox One VR solution still a year away it is very likely they will be console exclusives but PC versions might not be too far away.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare got plenty of time on screen with a gameplay trailer revealing more of the ship to ship combat hinted at in prior trailers. I’m starting to feel a little more encouraged about the game after seeing this trailer and seeing the potential the game offers with some really nice transitions between flying a small fighter, board an enemy vessel and escaping again.

It also looks like PS4 owners will also get access to the remastered Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare before everyone else in addition to the usual DLC. Hopefully that will not burn to many players of the other platforms who might be put off the initial game purchase.

Speaking of remasters, the Crash Bandicoot series will be getting the update treatment. Little was shown at all but for many fans the nostalgia it brings will be enough.

Speaking of nostalgia, there is plenty of that feeling when it comes to one particular developer whose history is strongly tied to the platform. Hideo Kojima took to the stage to reveal his team’s new game, Death Stranding, and much to the crowd’s delight his collaboration with actor Norman Reedus (The Walking Dead) appears to be continuing.

Finally, Insomniac Games return to PlayStation development with a new Spiderman game for PS4 that shows their time spent on Sunset Overdrive for the Xbox One was certainly worth it. It’ll be interesting to see how it compares to Activision’s games of the past generations.

Compared to last year’s I think this is a much better effort from Sony with a lot more of the games on show coming sooner rather than later. With delays to some of Microsoft’s own titles such as Scalebound, this brings them much closer to parity in terms of what is to come, exclusive or not.

No mention was made whatsoever about the PS4 Neo – Sony are trying to make it clear that the console you own now will be all you need for these upcoming games and PSVR. Keeping the momentum they have is key to their future success and it seems they are trying to avoid getting into an open arms race with Microsoft for as long as possible. Seems to be working well so far.

Full press conference is once again via Gamespot. Jump ahead to 34:25 to skip the pre-show chat and get right into it.

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I haven’t watched all of the presentation yet but the new God of War game looks great. It is an interesting strategy keeping quiet on the PS4 Neo but I suspect they want to sell a few more standard PS4s before the Neo hits in October.